A WORKING MAN Review

I’m always excited about the opening of a new Jason Statham action flick. A WORKING MAN is directed by David Ayer, who had just collaborated with Jason on last year’s excellent BEEKEEPER thrill-fest. It’s co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who (to my surprise) has 44 feature screenplay credits under his Rocky Balboa title belt, mostly for films he starred in. Them ain’t been none too high on brain fodder, but they reliably delivered the desired level of adrenaline boosting.

In this one, Statham plays a former super-soldier running a construction crew for a cozy family business owned by Joe Garcia (Michael Pena), assisted by his collegian daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas). When Jenny is snatched from a nightclub for unknown nefarious reasons, Jason has to kick-start his old particular set of skills to rescue the lass.

What follows is the accustomed path of working his way up the criminal food chain to save the girl while wiping out a slew of evildoers along the way. This entails deployment of feet, fists, some big knives, a helluva lotta guns, two grenades and a bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb isn’t IN the script. It IS the script.

For all the rounds of ammo fired, the bullets leave fewer holes than the plot. The details are too aggravating to enumerate. If you see this turkey anyway, take a note pad to keep track of them for some fun. Or wait for the streaming release, gather some pals and make it a drinking game. Down a shot every time something doesn’t make sense. No one will be able to drive home safely.

The action sequences were terrific in BEEKEEPER. But this one isn’t nearly as Statham-y as that was. Too much shooting, without his usual screen time of masterful hand-to-hand. Even worse, the choppy edits and dark settings made those clashes less exciting than one should expect from Ayers and Statham.

A couple of possible explanations come to mind. Perhaps Jason was ill or injured and they couldn’t find a stunt double who could adequately match his looks and moves. Or maybe the lighting crew went on strike, and they had to film without enough illumination. The sound was no bargain, either. Much of the dialog was hard to understand because of mumbling or background noises. That may have been a blessing, because the stuff one could hear wasn’t very engaging.

The structure of the story and the makeup of the eponymous hero were pure Statham – the elements that have made him a long-running star, thriving ever since his trio of TRANSPORTER flicks. But the execution here lets him and his fans down. Badly.

A WORKING MAN opens in theaters on Friday, Mar. 28.

RATING: 1 out of 4 stars